Las Positas College is expected to see significant technological changes and services. Many students and faculty members see the changes coming to LPC as a good thing, but these changes may also cause several pressing questions to arise.
These changes originate from Sept. 10, 2025, when Google unveiled a collaboration with California Community Colleges (CCC) to provide students and staff with free access to AI training, Google Career Certificates and other AI tools. Community colleges will be at the forefront of using the educational AI that Google is creating to help students through school and into the workforce.
In California, there are 116 community colleges with over 2 million students and faculty — all will have access to these services that are provided by Google. These students and faculty members will also be some of the first to use “Google AI for Education Accelerator,” which, according to the official CCC website, will “help prepare students for the jobs of today and tomorrow.”
According to a proposal for this collaboration created by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Google, “Google may offer an introduction to Generative AI Learning Path Course free-of-charge to all Californians.” None of the aforementioned initiatives are guaranteed, however. This proposal states that Google “may provide” these services — Google could retract or provide these services at their leisure.
This collaboration is a sign of Google’s investment in educational services and the development of a workforce that is fluent with the new AI-fueled economy. During a previous announcement regarding California’s partnership with tech companies in the generative AI sector Gov. Newsom said, “AI is the future — and we must stay ahead of the game by ensuring our students and workforce are prepared to lead the way.” But there are concerns about data privacy and security if Google provides these services to millions of people.
The proposal says that “Google may support the Governor’s Office’s efforts to protect and defend against threats with AI, while also providing, subject to enterprise agreements and terms, curated tools and services to secure personal and state AI data, models, applications, and infrastructure.” Personal data will be collected and stored by Google, but there is no guarantee that Google will follow through securing it. The proposal provided has many initiatives for protection and other services that all rest on the dubious word “may.”
These AI services would be trained on students and faculty data, which could implement an educational bias. There are many ways in which this AI can become biased; through data collection, data labeling, model training and its deployment.
The future is however, still uncertain as LPC faculty are currently still in the process of receiving information about what this partnership will entail.
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TOP PHOTO: Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Aug. 7 that the state of California has partnered with the four largest technology companies in the Gen. AI sector. Google, Adobe, IBM, and Microsoft have been revealed as the companies in the partnership. (Photo courtesy of Envato Elements)
Musa Ashraf is the Arts & Entertainment Editor. Follow him on X, @MusaZash.
